P.D. Shapinsky
label of outlawry used by entrenched, document- creating elites and their institutions to demonize
a range of individuals who disturbed the social order. Amino explored “evil bands” within the
context of a larger non- agricultural population of peoples with special skillsets (shokunin), includ-
ing “pirates” (kaizoku) and “entrepreneurs” (utokunin), who regularly transgressed borders and
spearheaded medieval commercialization. Other historians have seen akutō as indicative of a soci-
etal shift in which the population had lost faith in Kamakura as an effective vehicle for the resolu-
tion of disputes, and instead sought to carve out autonomous domains for themselves. Suits
claiming collusion between shugo, jitō, and akutō have similarly been interpreted as signaling
weakness in the late Kamakura regime. Arms- bearing figures from various backgrounds attempted
to exploit shogunal enforcement of the immunity of estates from shugo entry to engage in illegal
activities, including piracy in Korea. Still other historians note that the perceived threat of akutō
also coincided with Kamakura’s attempt to organize warriors for the Mongol Invasions. Finally,
akutō represented a prime source of recruits for Go- Daigo in his war to restore imperial rule in
Japan.^21
Local autonomy in the Muromachi period
The wars that engulfed the archipelago in the wake of Go- Daigo’s ascendancy, the fall of
Kamakura shogunate, the establishment of rival imperial courts, and the rise of the Ashikaga
shoguns largely erased the significance of earlier titles and labels. Endemic warfare provided
opportunities for fighting men from all backgrounds to perform services as warriors in return for
rewards in the form of confirmation of homelands or additional territories, and to do so in ways
that ensured their relative autonomy by playing one center of authority against the other.^22 His-
toriography has focused on five key groups: military governors (shugo), daimyō, kokujin (literally,
“provincials”), ikki (leagues), and villagers.
While earlier studies of these groups searched for the roots of early modern Japan, more recent
scholarship argues that this teleological perspective twists our reading of the past to privilege
institutions and battles that led to the victories of the three unifiers (Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi
Hideyoshi, and Tokugawa Ieyasu). Historians today tend to describe the autonomous groups of
the late medieval period as Janus- figures, with one face looking forward and one to the past,
seeking restoration of tradition while innovating new institutions. In like manner, discussions of
authority have shifted from a focus on land tenure as the basis of control to an embrace of mul-
tiple forms of territoriality and routes to local power.^23
Both “shugo” and “daimyō” are terms used to denote regional lords, but they are in fact quite
different. Although the title of daimyō took on a formal institutional definition under the Toyo-
tomi and Tokugawa regimes, it was, for centuries before that, an informal and descriptive label
for regional magnates. In contrast, shugo was an institutional office appointed by the Kamakura
and Muromachi shogunates.
The Muromachi- period shugo has for many reasons been a difficult figure for historians to pin
down. Scholars have long noted the contradictions between the prescriptions for shugo laid out in
the Ashikaga law codes, and historical realities. Moreover, the circumstances of recipients of
shugo titles varied, making extrapolation from particular cases difficult, and the nature of both the
office itself and those who held it transformed considerably between the beginning and the end
of the Muromachi period.
During the early Muromachi period, the Ashikaga simultaneously accepted the need to court
local support by entitling powerful local lords, and attempted to restrict the power of local elites.
They assigned relatives of the Ashikaga shogunal line to shugo positions, and split the jurisdictions
of powerful shugo. At the height of Ashikaga power, under the shoguns Yoshimitsu (1358–1408)